A person who lives uncoolly while longing for a cool way of life.

*The title is the participant's request.

Once upon a time, in a certain village, there lived a young man named Clumsy. Clumsy thought of himself as uncool, but in his heart, he always longed for a cool way of life.
In the village, a young man named Dashing was the object of everyone's admiration. Dashing succeeded at everything he did and always seemed to shine. While Clumsy wanted to be like Dashing, he could only sigh at his own clumsiness.
One day, a major problem occurred in the village. The river had dried up due to a drought, and the villagers were suffering from a water shortage.
Dashing came up with a splendid plan. "Let's dig a new well," he said. The villagers agreed and immediately began the work.
Clumsy tried to help, but he couldn't use the shovel well and was slow at digging, so everyone treated him like a nuisance.
Depressed, Clumsy was idling by a stream on the outskirts of the village. At that moment, he noticed that the flow of the stream was a bit strange. Looking closely, he saw that a small earthen levee had formed naturally, and thanks to that, the water was gathering in one place.
Clumsy thought that this mechanism could be applied to the whole village. He came up with a method to gather water by digging many shallow trenches instead of the deep well that Dashing and the others were digging.
He gathered his courage and proposed it to the villagers, but at first, no one took him seriously. Even so, Clumsy did not give up and began digging a trench by himself.
Before long, water began to gather in Clumsy's trench. The villagers were surprised and realized that with this method, they could cooperate to secure water in a short time.
In the end, the village solved the water shortage with Clumsy's idea. Dashing was also impressed by Clumsy and said, "The village needs flexible thinking like yours."
For the first time, Clumsy was able to have confidence. He had found his own kind of coolness.
Later, Clumsy said this: "Longing for a cool way of life is a wonderful thing. But perhaps, while cherishing one's own self, working steadily and piling up efforts is also another form of coolness."
And so, the proverb "Even a clumsy step becomes a path if you keep moving forward" spread throughout the village.
And they lived happily ever after.
That is what I thought as I wrote this preface for the 883rd Nameless Interview on September 22, 2024, at 6:26 PM!!!!!
[Preface: qbc / Yasuhiro Kuribayashi (Writer / Organizer of Nameless Interview)]

Our participant this time is Rena Sawada!

Age: Early 50s
Gender: Female
Occupation: To put it coolly, a consultant

Current status: As long as I am involved, it is meaningless unless I am useful.

Yuipi:
What do you do for a living, Ms. Sawada?

Rena Sawada:
I've quit being a company employee and am independent, so to speak. I'm a freelancer with a one-person company. My work consists mainly of two things.I work as a training instructor for companies, and I also use my national qualification as a career consultant to have one-on-one interviews, where I provide consultation and support for solving problems related to people's work and ways of life.I do these two things.

Yuipi:
What kind of training instructor are you?

Rena Sawada:
Well, let's see. I do new employee training, and in terms of business skills, I cover problem-solving for young employees, time management, and career design. Since career-related topics are popular lately, I teach those concepts and have the students actually think and output their ideas, which I do on a corporate basis. Working people always have problems, so I hope I can help liberate them from those things.

Yuipi:
When did you start doing that?

Rena Sawada:
I started in 2018, so about 7 years ago.

Yuipi:
Oh, I see. Is that a job you started after becoming independent?

Rena Sawada:
Yes, that's right.

Yuipi:
Was there a trigger for starting it?

Rena Sawada:
I didn't become independent with the goal of being a training instructor.Before this job, I worked at an IT company as a Web consultant. I worked there for about 12 years, and during those 12 years, the company grew from about 10 people when I joined to about 100 people over the course of 10 years. When the scale grows rapidly,human relationships between departments can become strained.The president wanted to do something about it and asked me to handle organizational reform. I had never done any HR-related work before, but I think they asked me because I had been there for a long time since the founding and had seen various things during the company's growth process, so they thought I would understand the employees. First of all,to do something about the organization, I started by interviewing all the employees and listening to their complaints and dissatisfaction!I also conducted surveys, and I took the lead in thinking about measures to strengthen the weak points based on the results that came out.

When I was doing things like that,at first I was doing a job that dealt with numbers as a Web consultant, but I started to find it more interesting to face people directly and help solve their "human" problems.That was one of the triggers for shifting my focus to work related to people. And there was another thing. I was appointed as a manager at that IT company and was doing member development. When I was appointed, I had no skills to stand above people, and I thought I couldn't manage without some kind of weapon, and that was when I encountered coaching. I thought, "This is it!" and immediately jumped into a school. I used that while managing, but it didn't go well at all, and I had a period where I was quite worried, thinking, "What should I do? What should I do?" I worried so much that I ended up with one foot in a depressive state. There were times when I couldn't stop crying for an hour or two.I really thought that standing above people or guiding them wasn't for me.

In the midst of that, the president's request to do something about the organization, which I mentioned earlier, came at just this time. When I was interviewing all the employees and getting involved in how to make things better, it was easy to do because I didn't have a hierarchical relationship with the employees. It wasn't painful at all. I started to think it would be interesting if I could make this my job. However, when I tried to make this a job, I only had the weapon of coaching, and I thought that was weak on its own. When I was looking for other weapons I could use, I found a qualification called Career Consultant. I could learn theoretical things, and since it was a national qualification, I thought it had name value, so I acquired it. When I was thinking about what to do after acquiring it, I considered changing jobs, but I was 42 or 43 at the time, and since I had no HR experience, I thought changing jobs would be a bit tough.

Then, there happened to be several female entrepreneurs around me, and when I talked to them, they were living very cool and free lives, and I thought that kind of life was nice. At the same time as I started thinking about how to realize that kind of life, I started thinking about quitting the company. I have a partner who runs a company, and there was talk that the president's seat at that company would become vacant, and it was like, "If you're going to quit your current company, the president's seat here is open, so why don't you take it?" and it was decided just like that, and I'm working in that position now. Various good timings overlapped.

So, what I really wanted to do was,I started my current job thinking I wanted to use my career consultant qualification to have one-on-one interviews, dig deep into the person, solve together what they are currently worried about, and find together what they want to do.But it didn't really become a job with just that, so when I looked for what else I could do, I found the job of a training instructor. When I tried it, I realized that depending on the training theme, I could face individuals, so it was surprisingly fun.

Yuipi:
I see.

Rena Sawada:
It ended up being really long (laughs).

Yuipi:
Not at all. How do you feel about doing your current job?

Rena Sawada:
Actually, I'm not satisfied yet. Both as a training instructor and a career consultant, I find it rewarding. However, there are still needs of business professionals that I haven't fully uncovered, so that is a challenge for me right now. I'm also thinking about how I can find clients that I can help.

Yuipi:
What do you consider to be the rewarding aspects of being a career consultant, Ms. Sawada?

Rena Sawada:
As long as I am involved, it is meaningless if I am not useful. Therefore, it is rewarding when, through my involvement, that person finds a new discovery or realization like 'Oh, I see!', takes the next step forward, or thinks 'I'm glad.' I want them to be able to open up a future where they can have confidence, and it is rewarding to feel that I was able to properly contribute and be of service to that.

Yuipi:
What kind of emotion is it when you feel you were properly useful? Or rather, what is the feeling?

Rena Sawada:
My emotion?

Yuipi:
Yes.

Rena Sawada:
I do a fist pump in my heart, saying 'Yes!'Also, in my career consulting work, I have another role where I do employment support at an NPO on a part-time basis. There are young people with social challenges, for example, those who have mild developmental disabilities, those who have been shut-ins for a long time, those who haven't been diagnosed but are in the gray zone and are extremely poor at communication, or those who are somehow afraid to go out into society but want to work, yet can't move forward because they are afraid of many things. I use this career consultant qualification to give those people a little push as well.

Many of those young people don't smile much and are not good at communicating. There are some who take a very long time to respond when I ask a question. They might be silent for 10 or 20 seconds, or sometimes even 30 seconds, and don't respond easily. But they are thinking really hard in their heads. There are people like that, and others who cry because they can't answer, or conversely, people who keep talking forever, or people who were full of energy until yesterday but then contact me saying they can't come to the interview because they are feeling down, or people who suddenly get in touch after being out of contact for several years; there are all kinds of young people. It takes a lot of energy for those young people to even go to an interview. When I support such young people and hear them suddenly smile or say something ambitious like 'I want to try this,' I do a fist pump. In my heart.

Yuipi:
I see. So, is there anything you do habitually or like to do outside of work?

Rena Sawada:
Yes, there is. I love diving.

Yuipi:
When did you start doing that?

Rena Sawada:
Around 2012.

Yuipi:
Why did you start diving?

Rena Sawada:
I went on a trip with my partner and happened to try a trial diving session. It was so much fun, and when I tried trial diving again on the next trip, it was still fun. I thought, if it's this much fun, it's a waste to just do trials, so let's get a license, and that's how I ended up getting it. I got hooked deeply from the trial.

Yuipi:
How is it? Diving.

Rena Sawada:
Oh, it's the best. The best. There's a typhoon coming now, isn't there?

Yuipi:
Yes, yes.

Rena Sawada:
So I can't go to the sea, which is really frustrating. Generally, when people go swimming in the ocean, they often splash around, ride on floaties, or play on the surface, right? When I was young, I used to splash around on the surface, but I felt something was off. I was at the sea and having fun, but it didn't feel quite right. However, when I dove into the sea, at that moment, I felt, 'This is it!'Because I dove into the sea and realized 'This is it!', it really made sense to me that this was the reason why I felt something was off when I was on the surface until then, and that left a strong impression on me. I love diving so much that I want to stay in the sea forever and ever as long as my breath lasts.

Yuipi:
What was it that made you think, 'This is it!' when you went diving?

Rena Sawada:
It's just, it feels good. It's kind of floaty, you can't talk, and the only sound you hear is the gurgling of your own breath. For safety, you have to dive with someone else, but since you can't really have a conversation, it's a world of your own. That world of one is also nice. You're also on the edge of life and death, knowing that if you take the regulator—the equipment for breathing air—out of your mouth, you'll definitely die, so there's a sense of tension that this air is protecting my life. I just love the feeling of drifting in the ocean. You get swayed by the waves, floating around. Like going right, then left. That kind of thing feels really good.

Yuipi:
What do you think about while you're diving?

Rena Sawada:
What do I think about? For one thing, I'm thinking about whether there are any fish around, and I'm also thinking, 'I'm so happy.' I might be immersed in my own world, thinking, 'This is the best.'I'm not thinking about the everyday world at all. I might be focusing entirely on 'me, here in the ocean.'

Yuipi:
Do you live near the ocean now?

Rena Sawada:
I live in Tokyo, so it's not close at all. I go to Izu or Okinawa. Before COVID, I used to go overseas, too. That's how it is.

Yuipi:
Conversely, how do you feel when you can't go diving, like when a typhoon is coming, as you mentioned earlier?

Rena Sawada:
For example, I accept that I can't go during the week from Monday to Friday because I have work, so that doesn't bother me at all. But actually, I had planned to dive next Sunday. I thought maybe the typhoon would veer off or pass by early, but it hit right on target, so when I realized I couldn't go even though I thought I could, it's like, 'What are you doing to me?' They show maps of the typhoon's path, right? I look at that, and while feeling truly resentful, I get all worked up and depressed. I also start thinking about revenge, like when I'm going to go next time.

Yuipi:
Revenge.

Rena Sawada:
I can only dive in the summer (though I could dive in winter if I wanted to, the water is cold), so the chances are short. It's like, 'You ruined my few precious chances, Typhoon No. 10!' It's really frustrating.

Yuipi:
It's right on next Sunday, isn't it?

Rena Sawada:
It hit perfectly. In a way, it makes it easier to give up, though. When it hits that perfectly.

Past:I'm told by many people that they've never heard of a junior college student doing this, but I was held back a year.

Yuipi:
What kind of child were you?

Rena Sawada:
I was quiet. Very quiet.That's why, when I was in elementary school, I once wet myself in the classroom. I couldn't tell the teacher I wanted to go to the bathroom. I still can't forget it. I was so quiet that I couldn't even raise my hand to tell the teacher something like that.But when I became a fifth grader, I started playing mini-basketball because of my father's influence. Then, I became an active child, and my personality changed so much that I became funny enough to do impressions in front of people.Even I am surprised by it now. I underwent such a transformation in elementary school.

Yuipi:
Why did you change so much?

Rena Sawada:
Maybe it's because I started speaking up when I started basketball. By playing basketball, I started having contact with kids from other classes and other grades, and maybe my world changed. Also, I became vice-captain, so I had to act as vice-captain, and there were times when I had to act on my own initiative. I think that physically speaking up and moving around changed my personality.

Yuipi:
Was there anything impressive or any special experience you had when you were in elementary school?

Rena Sawada:
Maybe in the sixth grade? We had a moral education class. As a premise, I was the type to read people's faces. I was a student who would go along with others' opinions, not really state my own, and not stand out. In that moral education class, there was a fictional story about a candy store with an old woman who was nodding off to sleep. A young elementary school boy came to buy candy. Since the old woman was asleep, a bad thought sprouted in the boy's mind that he might be able to shoplift. But there was a possibility that the old woman was just pretending to sleep. In the end, the boy shoplifted the candy and left the store. When that story was told, the teacher asked the students in the class, 'Was this old woman really asleep and didn't notice? Or did she notice but pretend not to see? Which one is it?' At this point, everyone except me raised their hand for the answer that the old woman was asleep and didn't notice.

Yuipi:
Uh-huh.

Rena Sawada:
If it were the real me, I should have just raised my hand to go along with everyone else, but for this one thing, I stuck to my own opinion and raised my hand for the side that said 'Grandma knew.' In the end, I forgot which one was the correct answer, but what left a strong impression on me was that I didn't lean toward everyone's opinion—that is, the majority—but instead followed through with what I thought. It's not that cool of a thing, though.I was always just imitating others, but at that time, I didn't imitate anyone and properly conveyed my own thoughts, and I feel very proud of that.

Yuipi:
Hmm.

Rena Sawada:
It's not a big deal, though (laughs).

Yuipi:
Do you remember why you were the only one who could raise your hand there?

Rena Sawada:
I don't remember at all. But hearing that question now, I think maybe I have a stubborn side where I think, 'It must be this way!' I must have been convinced in my own mind that it had to be this way. I think I had my own logic and was convinced that because of this, it must be that.Oh, there's one more similar story.

Yuipi:
Uh-huh.

Rena Sawada:
We had swimming class at school. At that time, the teacher gave instructions to take off our indoor shoes and go barefoot to the poolside. As it turned out, I was the only one who went barefoot. All the other girls wore their indoor shoes to the pool. I went barefoot alone, thinking, 'Huh? The teacher said to go barefoot, right?' After the swimming class ended, the teacher was furious, saying something like, 'I told you to go barefoot, so why did you girls wear your indoor shoes!' I was praised in a strange way, being told that I was the only one who followed the instructions properly. It's an event that left a very strong impression on me. Maybe it's the common thread of being 'only me.' I felt uneasy, wondering why everyone else was wearing indoor shoes, but I think I had decided in my own mind to follow the teacher's instructions. I just remembered that story.

Yuipi:
Did things like that happen after middle school?

Rena Sawada:
It's a bit different, but since I played piano as a hobby, I once volunteered to be an accompanist for the middle school choir competition. Until then, other classmates had been recommended as piano accompanists. At that time, I really wanted to do it, but I was embarrassed to raise my hand and volunteer, yet I wanted to accompany, so I was agonizing over that conflict alone. Just before the teacher was about to decide, 'Is it okay if so-and-so is the accompanist?', I raised my hand and said in a very small voice, 'I want to do it...' I remember the murmur of 'Oh!' very clearly.Even so, I thought I was glad I raised my hand. Maybe the common thread is that I decided and acted on my own.

I had a similar experience in high school. When I was deciding on a club in my first year, I had played basketball in elementary and middle school, but I didn't intend to do it in high school. But I wanted to join some kind of club activity, and I wanted to do something I hadn't done before or something I could only do here.Oh, I thought being a manager for the baseball team sounded interesting, so I went to the senior manager of the baseball team alone and pleaded my case that I wanted to do it. I found out later that you're usually supposed to go to the club advisor. I can still feel good about having taken that kind of action. The senior told me that not many kids come alone, and I was like, 'Oh, is that so?' I want to praise myself for that kind of initiative, and I'm glad I did it.

Yuipi:
Why did you switch to being a manager when you had been a player until then?

Rena Sawada:
I didn't know what the role of a manager was, and precisely because I didn't know, I wanted to try it—that's all. I wanted to challenge myself with something I didn't know. I'm saying it in a cool way, though.

Yuipi:
How was it, trying out being a manager?

Rena Sawada:
It was fun. We had games on Saturdays and Sundays, so I had no days off, and I felt sad because I couldn't go on the school trip since it overlapped with a game, but in the end, that's exactly why I felt like I had a youth experience. It was really good.

Yuipi:
What was fun about it?

Rena Sawada:
Hmm, I wonder what was fun. It wasn't exactly taking care of the team members, but as a manager, I was behind the scenes. I would wipe balls dirty with mud, sew baseballs when the red seams broke, keep the scorebook, talk with the coach, and clean the practice area. Maybe doing that kind of behind-the-scenes work thoroughly suited my personality.Working hard for someone else.It was fun doing that together with the other managers. That said, it wasn't like the team members would always thank me for my hard work. But there was a sense of unity with the team members, like, 'Let's win this game!' We didn't communicate much by talking to each other, but I think everyone shared the same feeling of 'Let's win! Let's go!' This is just my own assumption, though.Because we were doing that together, even though it was painful and hard, I think that's why it was fun.

Yuipi:
What kind of life did you lead after graduating from high school?

Rena Sawada:
I wanted to live alone as soon as possible. I said I wanted to go to a junior college and live alone, so I was allowed to live alone in Hachioji.Many people tell me they've never heard of a junior college student doing this, but I was held back a year.I went to junior college for three years. It was a university where the junior college and the four-year university were on the same campus, and I made friends in the four-year program, but I didn't wait for those friends to graduate. I graduated in my third year, when no one else was graduating at the same time.

My mother was very angry at me. I enjoyed living alone so much that I enjoyed it too much and was dragged back to my parents' house. Back then, there were no mobile phones, just landlines. It just so happened that the receiver was off the hook, so when my parents called my house, they couldn't get through. It was just my luck that I was staying at a friend's house and going straight to school, so my mother got worried and called my part-time job and school, and I was summoned at the university. They told me, 'Your parents are calling.' Everyone in my circle asked, 'What did you do?' I don't think I've ever seen anyone else get summoned like that.

Yuipi:
Hmm. So, after attending for three years and graduating, what kind of life did you have?

Rena Sawada:
The time we were job hunting was right when the bubble burst. Have you ever heard of the "bubble bursting"?

Yuipi:
Ah, yes.

Rena Sawada:
The economy suddenly went into a downturn. It was a job shortage, a super employment ice age. Have you heard of the ice age generation?

Yuipi:
Yes, I have.

Rena Sawada:
I was right in the middle of that super ice age generation. Even if I job-hunted normally, I really couldn't get anything. I couldn't even get to interviews; I'd get rejected at the document screening stage. Back then, there was still this idea in society that female junior college students would just quit soon after joining a company to get married anyway. So, I really couldn't get a job offer. It was a world where it was taken for granted that female students would get hired through connections.While I was job hunting, I cried on the train—well, I was on the train, but I cried. I was so anxious about the invisible future, not knowing what to do because I couldn't secure a job.

But suddenly, I thought, 'This isn't working, doing the same job hunting as everyone else around me.' Even though I had been crying, my brain switched, and I felt like, 'In that case, I'll enter society through a different method!' From there, I did various activities and managed to enter society somehow. I did get a job safely, but I quit soon after, and I repeated changing jobs about seven times in my 20s and 30s, resulting in a work history that really dirtied my resume.

Yuipi:
What kind of company did you work at for the longest time?

Rena Sawada:
That would be the IT company I mentioned earlier where I did web consulting. That was 12 years, so it was the longest.

Yuipi:
Why were you able to stay there for so long?

Rena Sawada:
Maybe it was comfortable. I didn't join that company because I wanted to enter the IT industry; I started as a temporary employee. A staffing agency introduced me to the job, and I just jumped in thinking, 'I'll go.' When I joined, the person I worked with was a micromanager who would get angry over things like the position of a period in an email draft. After sending emails to clients, I would be trembling, wondering if I was going to get yelled at again. I thought, 'I don't want to work with someone like this,' and decided I would quit when the contract expired. But just at that time, that person was transferred, and I no longer had to work with them directly, so I thought it might be okay to stay a bit longer, and before I knew it, 12 years had passed.Around that time, the IT industry was growing, and it was interesting to learn new things, and I felt it would be a plus for my future career. Looking back now, I'm grateful because I became strong in IT.

Yuipi:
I see. And that leads to the present you talked about earlier?

Rena Sawada:
Yes, that's right.

Mirai: And then, being satisfied and finishing. If I could say 'thank you' and press a button, that would be the best way to close the curtain on life.

Yuipi:
Thinking about the near future 5 or 10 years from now, the more distant future 20 or 30 years from now, and finally to the point where you pass away, what kind of image do you have for the future?

Rena Sawada:
That's a very difficult question to throw at me. First of all, 5 years from now, I'll be 55.

Yuipi:
Uh-huh.

Rena Sawada:
At 55, I want to still be active.There's also a part of me that thinks it would be boring if it were just an extension of my current work.I think there might be different services, or different ways to approach clients as a career consultant. So, I want to establish that and be active in that state 5 years from now. 10 years from now, I suppose it will be a continuation of that. But even 10 years from now, at 60, I don't have an image of retiring. I'm still working. And I also have an image of still being active in diving. That said, I don't want to live a long life, so I hope I can end my life neatly at a good time. I'm not thinking at all about living until I need nursing care.

It's like, I think it would be fine if there were a 'life-end switch,' just like a motivation switch.I believe that if there is a right to live, there should also be a right to die, so I hope that by the time I'm ready, it will be a future where I can just press a button and say, 'I'm satisfied.'Until then, I don't have many regrets so far, but I hope to continue diving comfortably while I'm still healthy. I mentioned earlier that I had one foot in depression, right?I hope I can become a grandma who is a place of help for people who can't move to the right or the left. I hope I can become a super grandma that someone can run to. And then, being satisfied and finishing. If I could say 'thank you' and press a button, that would be the best way to close the curtain on life.

Yuipi:
Is there anything you want to challenge yourself with? Anything you want to do?

Rena Sawada:
This is a bit off-topic, but every time I'm asked that question, I think, 'I tell young people in training to challenge themselves, but I'm not really challenging myself, am I?' I feel like I'm not moving. So, pressing the application button for this 'Unknown Person Interview' was quite a challenge for me. That's a story from the past, though. As for future challenges... can I think about it for a moment?

Yuipi:
Of course.

Rena Sawada:
...One thing is,I'd like to try playing the Japanese drums.If I had the chance, I'd like to try it. I think it's cool. Also, I still play the electronic piano sometimes, butI'd like to try playing the pipe organ too.Oh, and one more thing, it's not a big deal, but I'd like to be hypnotized. I absolutely hate green peppers. I hate them so much it's like they're my natural enemy. So,I'd like to be hypnotized into loving green peppers so I could eat them raw, crunching away.If I had the chance, I'd like to try that. But is this a challenge? It's more like things I want to try.

Yuipi:
That's perfectly fine.

Rena Sawada:
Is it? It's not exactly a grand challenge, though.

Yuipi:
I understand the pipe organ because you have piano experience, but why the Japanese drums?

Rena Sawada:
The word 'Japanese' never even came up in my life before (laughs). Sometimes they pop up on YouTube. Also, there are occasional features on TV, and when I see people playing the Japanese drums, whether they're men or women, they look cool. The way they play so powerfully is hardcore. Plus, I like the feeling of the sound resonating in my stomach. I think I might have had a chance to play them at a local festival? I've experienced that resonance in my stomach somewhere. I think it would be cool if I could play them myself. It's not like I've been thinking about it forever, though. It just comes to mind every now and then. So when you asked, it just popped out.

Yuipi:
In that case, instead of things you want to do, is there an ideal version of yourself you want to be?

Rena Sawada:
An ideal version of myself, huh? There are two people I think are great. Do you know the baseball player Ichiro?

Yuipi:
Yes.

Rena Sawada:
The other one is the actress Yuki Amami. Do you know her?

Yuipi:
Yes, I do.

Rena Sawada:
I like those two. I think they're cool. So, it might be a little different from an 'ideal version of myself,' but I want to be able to live with that kind of stance.

Yuipi:
What is it about Ichiro and Yuki Amami that makes them cool?

Rena Sawada:
They don't waver, and they have a core. Amami-san is dignified. As for Ichiro-san, even when asked a question, he answers properly with his own words and his own thoughts. There's no hesitation. If it were me, I'd get anxious, wondering if I was right. The way they treat everyone they meet with sincerity and integrity. I only know Amami-san through her acting, but I feel like she must have that same stance. Both of them are cool. So,they don't have the parts of myself from my student days that I disliked. They seem like people without any uncool parts, so they are two people I want to be like.

Yuipi:
I have a 'what if' future question.

Rena Sawada:
Yes.

Yuipi:
If you were forced to live in the mountains where it takes many hours one way to reach the sea, what kind of life would you lead?

Rena Sawada:
Ugh, the mountains? What kind of life would I lead? I'd go find a river where I could dive. At least I'd dive in a river. I'd go looking for a deep river or a deep pool like a waterfall basin, and at least set up a house near that. I can't function if there's no water. Even so, there's no option to leave the mountains, right?

Yuipi:
Even if you left the mountains, it's incredibly far to the sea.

Rena Sawada:
That's what I thought (laughs). No, I hate the mountains.I hate bugs, it looks cold, and I don't think there's any sense of openness in the mountains. It's just trees, trees, trees. Wouldn't I get depressed without the sea? I might just press the button saying 'I can't live like this!' If I can't dive, then forget it! That's how much of a hell it is. Yuipi-san, that's hell!

Yuipi:
Excuse me (laughs).

Rena Sawada:
That's quite a question.

Yuipi:
Even so, you still seek out rivers and water.

Rena Sawada:
I might actually get fired up, thinking I'll dive in no matter what. Even if the river looks cold.

Yuipi:
Why do you seek water so much?

Rena Sawada:
It just feels good to be in the water. This is a bit of a tangent, but I'm quite into spirituality, and I have various fortune-tellers look at things for me. I once had someone who is supposedly able to 'see' things look at why I love the ocean so much. Then, I'll skip the details, but I was told that my past life was Toyotama-hime. Apparently, Toyotama-hime was a mermaid. So, that's why I was told I love the ocean.

Yuipi:
What did you think when you heard that?

Rena Sawada:
Half-believing, half-doubting. I think it's interesting and romantic if it's true. I felt like I was still missing a lot of information to really let it sink in and think, 'So that's it!' It felt like I was told a romantic story.

Yuipi:
I'm asking for any final words you'd like to leave behind. It could be like a last will and testament reflecting on your life so far, a message to the readers, or your thoughts on this interview—is there anything?

Rena Sawada:
I see... That might be the most difficult question of the day. I'll tell you what I really want to leave behind.

Yuipi:
Yes.

I wanted to talk more.

Yuipi:
Oh.

Rena Sawada:
I don't know. I feel like there's still something I wanted to talk about that I might be hiding even from myself. That's the feeling I have. But even if you ask me 'what?', I can't quite put it into words.

Yuipi:
Yes, thank you very much.

Afterword

In the 26 years I've been born into this world, I've only ever lived right by the ocean. But a few months ago, I moved to a mountainous area deep inland. Looking at the mountains stretching out and the rice fields spreading before me, I thought, 'This is it!' I was born to be here! So, I laughed when I was told the exact opposite this time. Everyone has a place where they belong, I suppose. Since there are probably people who never reach that place in their lifetime, I must be a lucky person to have found my place. Though, I do want to go to the ocean sometimes.

【Interview, Editing, and Afterword: Yuipi】

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